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from imaginary enjoyment to reality of sorrow-from the love of a precarious life to thoughts upon his unavoidable death! If his own eye behold these daily spectacles of mortality; if his own heart feel that they are real; if his own dearest friends have given up this transient life, and gone to their inevitable grave, surely, you may ask again, he must be awake to the necessity for preparation. If these all fail to work conviction, well may I, the weak instrument employed to establish this important fact, though a minister of the Gospel, yet a frail and fallible creature,-well may I mourn over my insufficient counsel, and distrust my power to make men "wise to their salvation!" But so it is,-the world still lies in wickedness, though generations are swept away; this is the argument for exertion, not despair. You have the authority of the Gospel for the conclusion that, if " Moses and the prophets" be not heard, " one rising

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from the dead will not persuade" men. Gospel then must be guide to you and them—from its simply eloquent and intelligible page, labouring with all the earnestness and energy that an Omniscient God could bestow upon it, you must bend your time and talents to the task of winning them from the world around them to that which is to come.

Thus, my son, you will readily admit that the office to which you are now appointed is neither irresponsible nor unimportant. It is not to be denied that yours is a post of pre-eminence, but, be assured, it is also a post of peril, because of serious and weighty obligation. If your reward be great for duty well performed, proportionate will be your punishment for duty wilfully neglected.

Yours, &c. &c.

VISITING THE SICK.

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